Raid 0 is also risky, your data is split and written to two, or more, drives consecutively, so if one drive fails, you lose the lot. Drive failures are rare, but with each additional drive in raid 0 the risk of one of them failing increases, but I'm sure you knew that.

I know. But the speed ... the speed ! OMG THE SPEED !!!!!!!

I know of the risks involved. However that's what backups would be for ... assuming I were to have any actual data on those SSDs. If one of them dies, I can just delete the array, format the good one and do a fresh install on it.

Another issue with SSDs is lifespan - the jury is still out on them but I have heard of issues (they're only rated for a certain number of write cycles before they go into read-only mode).

If you're using an SSD and have virtual memory turned on (I don't have it on at all on my desktop but that has 16GB of RAM in it) move it to your mechanical disk drive!

I'll also add to the poster earlier: www.scan.co.uk is a good place to shop (cheaper than any other "bricks and mortar" store I've found) and, if you live in lancashire, you can skip delivery costs by driving to their store in Middlebrook, Bolton.

_________________============= Sig =============Just a y2k FSR with some modern bits

Damn this is bringing up old memories and the recommendations haven't changed since BiTD.. Just the names of the bits and bobs.

Yup I think this type of thread can easily backfire andf be taken over by the geeks. 3/4 of whats been said is well over my head, im just required to gle bits of wood together, not actually think about things

@ xerxesThis is budget based spread over about 6 months so nothings going to be happening soon. I also wont be building it but id rather source the parts myself and then get a small place to assemble and teat it. The GPU chosen i think is a bit overkill. I looked at these new 770 cards but the massive power they require is a bit more that id expect, 250w Bit high, the 660 are over 100w less of a draw and the card i have at present draws 143w. Because of my budget and remember we still need a case, psu, HD's wires and all the other bits. Cant justify adding another £200 to the bill just for a small increase. Also unsure on all this cpu business, i know its maybe not as important to gaming s the cooling,gpu and ram but i would have the thought the newer the better as it usually means a quicker, more stable platform, afterall the 4th gen is based on the 3rd with tweeks, a much lower idle speed and higher max speed. Question- The ssd i listed at 32gb. is that not enough for windows 8 and the swop file(chap at work knows this and was talking about it today, should have paid more attention ) All the game files will be in the main HD. Plus this system is likely to be gaming only and ill rebuild the current with more ram for general farting aboutOf the 500gb HD i had fitted in 2008 when i had my current system built i still have 335gb remaining. Other than bike pics and gaming theres little else i do on it. I think a whole TB would just go to wast.

If you already have a 500GB drive, that's fine, but if you look at the price of new 500GB drives, they are generally only a fiver less than a 1TB, so they're not good value.

Similarly if you look at SSDs, I couldn't find a 32GB, but a 64GB is ~£45, a 128GB ~£70, so you get double the capacity for less than twice the price.

With HDD, SSD and RAM, you generally find there's a "sweet spot" where you get the most GB for your money and it's generally not the lowest, or highest capacities, but somewhere in the middle.

My GPU recommendation was on the basis that the PC would mainly be for gaming, or if not mainly, gaming is likely the only really taxing thing you'll be doing with it, as general web browsing, e-mailing and office applications don't need much processor oomph at all. In fact, other than gaming, the only things that really tax CPUs are video editing, CAD and 3D modelling and perhaps working on really large photo/raster files.

As such, I suggest saving on the CPU and motherboard and putting more towards the GPU. As I mentioned, I have an Intel core i5 2500K with a mild overclock to 4.5Ghz, now two or three years old, but it's plenty fast enough for everything I do, which includes web site design, programming, database development, graphic design, the usual office stuff and some gaming. Modern CPUs, mine included automatically clock back when they're not doing something CPU intensive and for pretty much everything except games my CPU ticks over at 1.6GHz and only boosts to 4.5GHz during some games, or if I screw up when I'm programming and create a never ending loop.

At the moment, I feel no need to upgrade my CPU, motherboard or memory, but my similarly aged Nvidia GTX460 struggles with the more graphics intense games and I generally have to reduce screen resolution and turn down some of the settings to get fast enough frame rates.

I think you could also cut back on RAM, 16GB is probably overkill, I have 8GB, now about £50.00, and I rarely use more than 50%.

Also, bear in mind that for some time now, PC game graphics have to some extent been held back by consoles, as most games are ports of console games. With a the new XBOX and PS4 about to be released, we may see more graphically demanding PC games in the near future.

Also unsure on all this cpu business, i know its maybe not as important to gaming s the cooling, gpu and ram but i would have the thought the newer the better as it usually means a quicker, more stable platform, afterall the 4th gen is based on the 3rd with tweeks, a much lower idle speed and higher max speed.

True, it's an evolution ... but they also decided to cut costs by using cheap thermal paste instead of soldering the heatsink on, and that does have its consequences. Intel doesn't care if the CPU runs a little hot, as long as you don't overclock you won't fry it. It's "within safe operating parameters" and that's all that matters apparently.

Like xerxes, I'm perfectly happy with my i5-2500 despite running at its stock 3.3GHz (I don't overclock). Processors haven't moved along that much really. Yes, on average they've gotten 10% or so faster and use less power at idle, but it sounds to me like you won't use the PC to sit on the Windows desktop all day. And that 10% won't help your gaming experience really. You just won't notice it.

dyna-ti wrote:

Question- The ssd is listed at 32gb. is that not enough for windows 8 and the swop file(chap at work knows this and was talking about it today, should have paid more attention ) All the game files will be in the main HD. Plus this system is likely to be gaming only and ill rebuild the current with more ram for general farting aboutOf the 500gb HD i had fitted in 2008 when i had my current system built i still have 335gb remaining. Other than bike pics and gaming theres little else i do on it. I think a whole TB would just go to waste.

The FPS will be the same if you put the game on an SSD as opposed to a HDD, but loading times will be greatly reduced and the FPS will be more stable when the game needs to load new scenery as you move about or when an antivirus kicks in.

As for your HDD, it sounds like 500GB is plenty then. No need for a TB or more ... unless you plan to start collecting downloaded movies on the PC. I agree with xerxes about the sweet spot theory, but there's just no need to hit that spot if you won't ever need the space. That being said, a "5 year old HDD" is a phrase that always makes me nervous. Before you put that old HDD in a new PC, run cristaldiskinfo, speedfan or some other disk diagnostics tool, just to make sure that the HDD isn't nearing its end.

Elysarian wrote:

Another issue with SSDs is lifespan - the jury is still out on them but I have heard of issues (they're only rated for a certain number of write cycles before they go into read-only mode).

When they first appeared, that used to be a problem indeed. However the whole "you can only write so many times on an SSD" thing is seriously outdated now.

Most SSDs have TRIM, which spreads the writes to maximize SSD life. With a few minor tweaks (disable defragmenting etc) they will outlive the rest of the PC, and probably the next PC too. SSDs are usually rated for 60-80.000 writes or more. However that's writes per block and there are thousands of blocks where it can write that data. Basically you can write tens of millions of times on an SSD and it'll keep storing and reading it without a problem.

I have a 2 year old SSD here (my former PC's system/game disk) that has been powered up for 9746 hours so far and has had 18.0 TB of writes on it during its System Disk carreer (I only just reassigned it to active duty, but with the intent of using it for Bluray ripping and converting) CrystalDiskInfo still gives it a 100% health status and 100% life left (10% being the threshold at which it starts to warn me about wear). No errors whatsoever, no retired blocks, no wear. I wish I could say the same about my mechanical HDDs once they reach that age.

EDIT : Oh and xerxes, a 460 isn't cutting it anymore indeed. My own 4870X2 still has the brute force to keep up with most modern cards even with the second GPU being dormant, but it's starting to show its age too.

Oh and xerxes, a 460 isn't cutting it anymore indeed. My own 4870X2 still has the brute force to keep up with most modern cards even with the second GPU being dormant, but it's starting to show its age too.

I think the GT460 and HD4870 are fairly similar in performance and I only have a single card. Also, I have a fairly large monitor, 1920x1200 pixels, hence I have to reduce the resolution from native for quite a few games.

dyna-ti, I still know what they are talking about but I left the cooling and tweaking to get 1% more some time ago. I don't play FPS games as I don't like them much. All same as same as after a bit. Hell I used to Peltier cool 486 DX's Nothing is new After a bit you just get a midrange PC quiet air cool fan and be done with it, 5 years later it still plodding along and working fine on the same old games. It's just money after money keeping up... now the switch to old bikes has solved that money drain problem

I've been turfing out fans, ram, boards, soon to be cases and PSU's Just don't need them any more and old tech.I am keeping my various AWE32's and AWE64's though just cos.

If you buy a new harddrive, get a 1GB. They are at 1GB platters, it'll be quicker and you'll only be on a single platter.

I've not bothered with SSD yet as other than in a laptop I do not have a need for the extra second of my life for what I now use them for. But if I did it would certainly be in the 128G region so Games could load from it. I would also personally run Win8 as I like it and have no problems with change. It is also a hell of a lot quicker on lesser powered laptops.

http://www.businessdirect.bt.com/ is surprisingly competetive on price - I've never used them as I live 10 minutes from Scan and, aside from a DOA graphics card a few years back, have never had any issues with their customer service, delivery is pretty prompt too (usually next day unless the item is out of stock) when I've ordered stuff that way for work.

Ebuyer have some good deals and I've had stuff from them too, have recommended Aria to friends based purely on price (my wife got a computer from them a few years ago when her and I were just "friends").

_________________============= Sig =============Just a y2k FSR with some modern bits

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